Ended on: Wednesday 1st of October 2003
The characters are given two missions:
One, they must escort Goratrix an influential Tremere to Ceoris.
Two, they must help Zelios finish the web he unknowingly built to bind the demon Kupala.
Date in World of Darkness: Wednesday 1st of October 2003
Played at: Philippe
Let me give you a peace of warning, in case you should aspire to become (or aspire NOT to become, as I did) a Prince. As soon as you have become (or have been appointed to become) one, everything seems to slip away from you. Behind every control-intent leader lurks a world of chaos. Furthermore the more control you intend to impose, the less you effectuate. In the end, chaos reigns, as the laws of physics have discovered and have named entropy: the whole universe inevitably works its way into the state it is striving for: perfect and utter chaos. In this gloomy tone I shall relate some of our recent vicissitudes.
Of this inevitability, we had our piece these days. And we contributed too. We were on our mission to rid ourselves from the famine and earthquakes that had plagued the Romanian countryside. After a half-day’s travel from our home base, we were forced by daylight to stay over in an isolated village hotel, and as soon you’re in one, you know trouble is on the way, the omens were clearly present. The hotel was littered with catholic crosses and Christian symbols, to an alarming extent. We were puzzled by the sight of ten heavily armed men, transporting a crate, walking into the hotel. Goratrix, the blood-thirsty Tremere dissident we were sent to escort, informed us in the hotel of the contents of the crate, of which he believed it to be some sort of magical weapon. This weapon could be of use for us, so we decided to investigate a little. We followed the armed men into the room they had entered, but upon our entering, the room was devoid of them. Out the window, only the silhouette of one of the men could be seen. By this time, dawn really was starting to urge us into our hideout, but I decided to pursue the matter just a little further, to compensate for my chicken coterie mates.
As soon as I opened the hotel entrance to follow the armed men and their famous magical crate, they opened fire. As on cue, all ten men started to pump my educated body full with lead, as much and well as they could. I was fortunate enough to have been hit about fifteen times, before the men had decided that the Swiss cheese I had become was ripe enough. So much for the magical weapon and my attempts at procuring it. After shaking and shedding the blue beans from my body I could not keep up with the soldiers. By now, it was daybreak and only with the utmost efforts I managed to crawl back into the hotel before falling asleep.
The next evening, the shit really hit the fan. As soon as we set foot outside the hotel, shadows were growing out of the ground. Literally. The shadows started to materialize into a shadow cloud, with at the top a small cloud of lightning. We were unable to do anything and as soon as the figure had materialized completely, we were nailed to the ground by the sheer fear this figure seemed to bring out in us. This was no ordinary figure, this was Tremere himself. No I am not jesting, this was Tremere, looking at us, one by one. You could feel him casting his eyes at you, and this casting was not done by his eyes alone, but with only a fragment of his infinite power. This fragment sufficed to feel your blood going sour. I did not even resist the agony his look brought about in me, as my blood started to boil, my bones started to crack and my skull felt like it was about to burst. Then He entered my mind. Like Heidi picking flowers in the Alps, he started to pick my thoughts and memories, one by one, exploring the fields of my mind, weighing and evaluating each thought, collecting those that seemed worthy. Then He left, and took Goratrix with him. Atrius, His aid, appeared when we were still reeling from His gaze and granted us a wish, I guess in return for our services in escorting Goratrix. We asked him to inscribe Ceoris with the Zelios’ message.
There were some loose ends to tie up. I argued that such a crucial task as inscribing the castle at Ceoris with the message binding Kupala should not be left to be done by some stranger so easily. An argument rose, and while I wished to visit Ceoris to inspect the correct inscription for myself, my chicken (once again!) coterie members wished to bail out to Brasov. Ceoris was still some days of travelling away, and to prevent scattering our forces, I decided to join them, though not light-hearted. Before we left, I easily reminded the hotel manager of the fact that all the ruckus of last night had been the result of a terrible thunderstorm.
Soon after this incident, we received notice from Zelios:
“Greetings to you,
I hope that you have successfully concluded your business. Though I know you look forward to resting after your journey, I have a boon (sic! A.S.) I must ask of you. You will have noticed that the weather has become more foul each day. The ground quakes and I fear our mountains shall tumble down if this does not soon cease.
I believe these phenomena are caused by the thrashings of Kupala as he seeks to thwart our plans to bind him. One castle yet remains which must be marked: that of the Tzimisce voivode Vintila Basarab. Although I hesitate to ask you yet again to undertake a journey, I must do so. The voivode’s castle lies in the Bihor mountains some miles north of Alba Julia. Any of the locals can tell you how to find it.
Though I would go and do the deed myself, I find that I must travel with all haste to Western Europe. I must ask of you to complete our geomantic ward in my stead. Go to the voivode’s castle and convince him to let you carve the runes upon it. You shall know you have succeeded when the rains stop.
I ask you for the good of us all,
Zelios ”
The time had come to put this ordeal to an end once and for all. Harold made a perfect copy of the message and we set out for Basarab’s castle through the most terrible of weather. Sherazina had become very anxious. It turned out that her brother, Dragomir – the man who had let us in – had been embraced by her grandfather: voivode Vintila Basarab himself! Dragomir granted our request of inscribing the castle on one condition: showing us his understanding with his grandfather in a small play. He had one of his female servants laid out on a table and in the most gruesome manner, sucked the life out of her – suggesting that his supposed grandfather had met the same fate. I felt my Princely duties and my Ventrue morale rise, but something seemed to crack in my mind. Perhaps it was the endless succession of bizarre and gruesome events, mind-fucks, waste of lives, pools of blood down the drain, of which the last gurgling noise made by the spinning vortex made my head trip. I could feel myself toughen up, and for a moment I could feel the entropy engulf the world. I understood, and we set out to do the business we had come for. Only with the utmost effort we succeeded in inscribing the foundation with the binding message. Kupala resisted with all his might. The ground shook as never before and we had to exert all our strength to support Harold in doing the inscribing work. In the end, we succeeded. The earthquakes, storms and rains ceased and Dragomir’s spirits had lifted – apparently he had been under Kupala’s curse. Eventually, we had effectuated some order in chaos, but only in spite of more chaos, just like the laws of entropy will it.
Alexander Samplonius
